In Search of motherland: Ukrainian diaspora and the question of cultural relations with Soviet Ukraine

This article traces the relations between the Ukrainian diaspora community and the Soviet Republic of Ukraine, showing how this relationship developed in the context of the Cold War. First, the author addresses the question of the formation of the Ukraini-an diaspora as a transnational subject with multiple national identities, which at the same time showed compactness through the creation of supranational political organ-izations and cultural associations. Then the article moves on to analyze these rela-tions, highlighting different elements: the preferential relations with the USSR of the Ukrainian Canadian Communists, the educational trips to Soviet Ukraine, the period of cultural renewal represented by the istdesiatnyky, the birth of the relationship with the dissidents within the wider transnational movement for the defense of human rights, the battle played on the level of propaganda and the contribution of the Association of Ukrainian Writers in Exile «Slovo» and finally the role played by the Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute in the liberation and support to the dissidents who fled Brezhnev’s repression.

Keywords: Diaspora, Ukraine, Soviet Union, human rights, dissidents, Harvard University

Simone Attilio Bellezza, In cerca della madrepatria: la diaspora ucraina e il dilemma dei rapporti culturali con l’Ucraina sovieti in "MONDO CONTEMPORANEO" 2-3/2020, pp 257-274, DOI: 10.3280/MON2020-002013